


'cause i haven't moved in years (and i want you right here)

by pentaghastly



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Groundhog Day, is there enemies in this? idk but it feels valid, katara and zuko are stuck in a time loop, the reason why is never explained because i said so, this is the palm springs AU that no one asked for, this shit FLUFFY. YEET.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: Katara and Zuko meet at a wedding.And meet.And meet.And meet.(She tries her hardest not to think about the fact that somehow, for some impossible to define reason, this seems to be her infinity.She tries her hardest not to think about anything other than him.)
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 351





	'cause i haven't moved in years (and i want you right here)

**Author's Note:**

> please watch Palm Springs it's a very. Very good movie.

_'We kind of have no choice but to live.  
So I think your best bet is just to learn how to suffer existence.'_  
\- Palm Springs (2020)

.

Katara doesn’t know much about time.

She knows the basics of time. She knows what it feels to move through it, knows the stifling pressure of feeling as though there’s never going to be enough of it. Katara knows how it feels when time is _running out_ , when everyone arounds you is pressing forwards and you’re pretty certain that your gear is stuck firmly in reverse.

And, well, she knows that time doesn’t really seem to exist at weddings. With everything awash in the hazy glow of romance, dim lighting and romantic ballads drifting through the breeze, it feels though she’s been teleported into a different world. She can’t say for certain what time it is; it’s a Saturday, obviously, the second Saturday in August, but the reception has either been going on for fifteen minutes or five hours. The open bar and abundance of sugary beach-themed cocktails haven’t exactly helped either.

Katara doesn’t know much about time, but she knows that it seems to drag on _especially_ long when the awkward best man is giving a speech.

“Growing up with Azula meant that everything was a competition,” he says, voice somehow gentle and rough all at once. She’s never met Azula’s brother before, but Ty Lee has told her more than enough—handsome, shy, _strange_. She’s certainly getting a clearer picture now. “Who could get the best grades. Who could run the fastest. Who could eat the most fireflakes at once without throwing up in the bushes. She won all of those, by the way.” The crowd chuckles, affectionate, fond. He’s good, Katara notes. Suspiciously so.

“It doesn’t surprise me that she met the love of her life before me. From the time we were kids everyone knew two things about Azula: she was a spoiled brat,” another polite laugh, another awkward pause, “and that her and Ty Lee were meant to be. And as her older brother I can honestly say that I—”

So, yeah. Katara tunes him out.

It’s not that she isn’t interested in the speech. It’s not that she doesn’t _care_ about what he has to say. She can see Sokka and Suki in her peripherals, grinning brightly, and she knows that whatever words are being recited by the head table are probably worth listening to. 

It’s only that it’s very difficult to focus when Zuko is spending what feels like his entire speech staring straight at her, like every word that he’s saying is for her benefit. 

.

She finds him by the beach later, beer in one hand, waves lapping against his feet.

“Not a fan of weddings?” she asks, aware of the slight slur to her words. _Humiliating_. 

“Not a fan of dancing.” Zuko barely turns his head to acknowledge her, but she sees a slight flicker of…well, of something in his amber eyes. Something that’s difficult to identify in the dark. “What about you?”

The real answer: some creepy guy with a toothpick dangling between his teeth had been acting like her sleezy shadow from the moment the dancing started, and while retaliation had been incredibly tempting Katara had figured that Ty Lee wouldn’t appreciate one of the guests being stabbed with a butter knife in the middle of her wedding. Azula probably would have found it funny, but if anything that knowledge just acted as a deterrent.

She doesn’t feel like explaining all of that, so instead she shrugs. “What’s the point of going to a wedding on an island if you don’t take some time to appreciate the ocean?”

Her heels long abandoned, she steps into the waves beside him. It’s surprisingly warm, a pleasant difference compared to the ice cold waters from home. More than five minutes with your toes in there and they’d likely be moments away from falling off.

They stand there in silence for a moment, waves lapping at their feet, and Katara takes a moment to appreciate his profile as he stares out into the water. It’s… _pretty_ , that’s really the only way that she can describe it. Even the scar serves more to accentuate the softness of his features than it does detract from them, suiting him in a way that she’s almost certain Zuko wouldn’t appreciate her pointing out. It’s almost difficult to remember that he and Azula are related in a moment like this, moonlight painting him into something gentle.

“You’re staring,” he snaps, and—oh. Okay. There’s that Sozin charm she knows all too well.

“ _Touchy_ ,” she huffs, and then realizing she’s being standoffish when she really has no right to be Katara amends, “Sorry. It’s just…you and Azula are so different. In a good way.”

That seems to get his attention. He turns his gaze towards her and studies her in a way that’s almost unnerving, similar to the way that he’d been staring at her during the speech. It makes her skin crawl, and Katara honestly couldn’t say if that’s due to discomfort or something else. Something far deeper.

Or, well, it could be the sake. It could definitely be that.

“Huh,” Zuko says, the corner of his lips twitching upwards just a bit. “I think you’re the first person who’s ever said that to me.”

“Have we met?” Katara can’t help it; the words pour out of her without a second of hesitation. “I know we haven’t, but I’m _so_ sure we have. If that makes sense.”

“Want to see something cool?” he says, a clear cop-out.

So, of course, Katara says yes.

.

Something cool is a wine cellar.

No, scratch that—it’s _the_ wine cellar.

“God, I fucking hate rich people.” Zuko’s scoff of indignation causes her to giggle, the merlot that he’s pouring into her glass (and oh, the bottle says it’s almost fifty years old, it probably costs more than she pays for her one bedroom each month) sloshes over the edge, leaving a mark like a bloodstain on her hand. “Seriously! This just tastes like—”

“Wine,” he finishes for her, cheeks flushed, grinning like a child. It’s _adorable_. “It tastes like wine.”

“And there’s so many bottles!”

“Hundreds,” Zuko confirms.

“Just sitting here untouched! Your dad just stashes them down here like,” she hiccups, fully throwing of the rhythm of her indignant speech, “like _junk_! There’s no way you’ll ever be able to drink all of these!”

“I don’t think he ever plans on it. But hey,” his glass clinks against her own in a drunken cheers, “that’s not going to stop us from trying, is it?”

And, okay, Katara doesn’t know anything about time, but she’s pretty sure that she knows that in moments like this—

In moments when the world goes fuzzy all around the edges and there’s a very beautiful boy staring at you, a boy with pink cheeks and ember eyes, a boy who smells like camp smoke and vanilla—when there’s a boy like that, time stops existing all together. Everything becomes warped. All of the colours begin to blend and bleed together and the whole world becomes impossibly still. Quiet. Everything locks in one solid place.

When there’s a boy looking at you like that and time seems to stop existing all together, Katara knows that you’d have to be very, _very_ stupid to not take advantage of it.

“I can’t believe I’ve never kissed you before,” Zuko says.

She giggles, pressing a palm against his chest like a drunken schoolgirl. “That’s such a weird thing to say.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.” He doesn’t sound upset about it. He doesn’t sound nihilating. He just laughs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and so Katara doesn’t think much about his words at all. “I’m just going to wake up in the morning and do today all over again, but—holy shit. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before.”

Even if she wanted to question him, even if she hadn’t been so distracted by his smile or the sparkle in his eyes or the way he tilted his head a little bit to one side when he laughed—even then, Katara wouldn’t have had any time to think about the deeper meaning to his words.

From there it’s all lips, hands, heartbeats, teeth.

She’s pretty sure that she’s going to remember this night for the rest of her life.

.

She’s in bed.

Her phone is ringing. 

_Endlessly_ ringing.

Katara fumbles over her blankets to reach for it—and how did she get in bed, anyways?—and, well, she’s not surprised to see a photo of Ty Lee’s face taking over the screen. Nine-thirty in the morning, it says. Nine-thirty in the morning on Saturday. Nine-thirty in the morning on the second Saturday of August. Which is just…her phone is broken. Obviously.

It can’t be. It’s impossible. Except…well, except somehow it _is_.

“ _Kitty-Kat!_ ” Ty Lee doesn’t give her a moment to get a word in edgewise, shrill and piercing, which should be aggravating her hangover except she doesn’t have one (how the fuck does she not have one?) “ _Oh my gosh, can you believe it? I’m getting married today!_ ”

.

Time.

Time, Katara knows, is one fickle mistress.

.

Once her panic attack finishes and she’s able to drag herself out of it, it isn’t exactly hard to find Zuko. Once she remembers his words, remembers that he said he would just wake up and do the day all over again, she hunts the Sozin family property until she comes across the only person on the beach sitting under an umbrella, an obnoxious dark spot against a sea of pastels and hot pinks. 

He’s got a beer in one hand, a book in the other, and he looks way too bored considering their circumstances. If his eyes widen in surprise at her approach, kicking up sand all around her as she stalks towards him, it’d be impossible to tell—the sunglasses that cover his face are almost comically large. He looks ridiculous. He looks _calm_ , which only makes Katara infinitely more furious because she’s pretty certain that she’s about five minutes away from an aneurysm. 

“You!” she snaps, picking up a nearby handful of sand and tossing it with near perfect accuracy towards his stupid, beautiful face. “What the _hell_ did you do to me?”

“Huh.” For his part he does little more than blink. “So. I guess it happened to you too, huh?”

“Oh, you _guess_? Last thing I remember you’re feeling me up in a wine cellar,” and it’s interesting because _that_ seems to get a rise out of him, his cheeks flushing, brows furrowing in obvious frustration, “and then suddenly I’m waking up in bed, finding out that the whole last day of my life didn’t actually fucking happen! So what, did you just—did you drug me? Did you spike that shitty, rich person wine?”

“Okay, I would _never_ do—can you settle down? People are staring.”

“Do _not_ tell me to settle down!”

“You’re scaring Uncle!” Zuko gestures to an older man in a green bathing suit happily splashing in the waves, one who noticeably does not look even slightly frightened as he offers the two of them a jovial wave. “Look, can you just…can you sit? I promise, I’ll explain everything. Just…hear me out.”

She hesitates.

He opens the cooler beside him and offers a beer.

“Just sit down,” he repeats, “and relax. It’ll be a lot easier if you do.” 

“No. No, no, no. I _refuse_ to believe this.” It’s a terrible, awful dream. It has to be, because the alternative is way too insane for her to comprehend. Katara takes a step backwards, hands in front of her face, ignoring his sputtered protestations. “I’m going back to my room, taking a shit ton of Ativan, and when I wake up—because I _am_ going to wake up—it’ll be tomorrow and I’ll never have to look at your stupid, smug face ever again.” 

Zuko, for his part, actually looks quite offended at that. “Hey! You didn’t seem to think my face was stupid last night,” he protests, but it’s too late; Katara is marching away, flipping him her middle finger over her shoulder.

She does exactly what she told him she was going to.

It’s going to work.

It _has_ to.

.

Spoiler alert:

It doesn’t work.

Ty Lee phones her at nine-thirty in the morning. Katara throws her phone across the room so hard that the screen shatters, but she figures that hey, who cares? It’ll just fix itself in the morning and she’ll be able to break it all over again.

The only thing that’s different is that when she opens her door Zuko is already there, sitting cross-legged on the hallway floor. She expects him to rub it in, expects him to say _I told you so_ in a mocking tone. He doesn’t do that, though. He doesn’t even laugh. Instead he just looks…sad. He looks like he pities her. Somehow Katara thinks that might be worse.

“Believe me,” Zuko says, reaching into his bag to toss her a beer, and some horrible clenching in her gut tells her that it has to be the exact same one he’d offered her yesterday. Katara really, _really_ doesn’t like the gravity of his tone. “You’re going to need this.”

.

“So.”

“So,” he echoes.

“You’re saying we’re in a—”

“Time loop. Basically, yeah.”

“And you’ve been here for…”

“Uh…shit. That’s a loaded question. I think it must have been twenty, maybe thirty Saturdays?” At her look of disbelief he just shrugs, taking a sip of his beer as if in an attempt to allow him another moment to plan out his words. All that his pause does is allow Katara another moment to slip into a full-blown panic. “You kind of lose track after the first time everything seems to collapse in on itself. But yeah, it’s been a while.” 

“And it’s always the same?” Zuko levels her with a stare, a _seriously?_ sort of glance, and her nose scrunches in mild embarrassment. “You know what I mean! Apart from me waking up here with you, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

He mulls her words over for a while and Katara finds herself somehow, horrifyingly, feeling sorry for him. It’s become very clear rather quickly that Zuko clearly hadn’t planned for whatever was happening here, and she can only imagine the horror of having to go through all of this alone. Sure, she’d woken up with blinding rage and the intent to strangle him where he sat, but at least she’d had _someone_. At least she hadn’t been alone.

“They all follow a similar pattern, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve never really tried anything too crazy before? I drove Dad’s car into the ocean once—thought, you know, that if I died maybe I’d wake up tomorrow but obviously that didn’t do anything. Also? Drowning,” he takes another sip of the beer, “ _sucks_. Do not recommend it.” 

It shouldn’t be funny but she still laughs despite herself, a little surprised by the sound. “Noted.” 

The silence between the two of them…it isn’t comfortable, but it’s certainly less murderous than it was before. Apparently there’s some kind of understanding that grows between two people who are stuck in the same impossible situation. Katara checks her phone and sees that they’ve been speaking for nearly an hour, long enough that it’s well past time for the two of them to be getting ready for the wedding ceremony. She’s one of the bridesmaids; Azula will kill her if she’s late.

Which is a hilarious thought, really, because time doesn’t matter and none of this matters and if Azula kills her or she runs into the open ocean with weights tied onto her feet it. Doesn’t. Matter. She’ll wake up in bed tomorrow and have the opportunity to go to the same wedding all over again, and again, and again.

“Have we met before?” she asks, hating how desperate she sounds.

“Kind of. We didn’t talk much, but we’ve met a few times,” Zuko replies, shrugging as if it’s the most casual thing in the world. “You kept coming up to me at the bar and telling me that I could at least _pretend_ to look happy that my little sister was getting married.” Katara laughs. He does too. “It was super annoying.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right.” 

Time is pointless. Time is awful. Time is _nothing_ , apparently, and on her third Saturday (the third second Saturday in August, to be specific), she’s strangely comforted by that fact. For once in her life, Katara allows herself to think that she can make every single mistake imaginable. For the first time since…since she learned how to walk, probably, she thinks she’s finally got the chance. 

The chance to do _what_ still remains to be seen, but she’ll be damned if it’s not something incredible. 

“I don’t feel like going to a wedding today.”

Zuko snorts. “I _never_ feel like going to a wedding.”

So, naturally, they don’t.

.

What they do is as follows:

Break into Zuko’s parent’s beach house. Steal all of Ozai’s ridiculously expensive whiskey. Throw a few priceless pieces of crystal at the wall. Smash a couple of picture frames while they’re at it.

Break into the hotel bar. Steal a bunch of the appetizers.

(Read: steal almost _all_ of the appetizers.) 

They light a bunch of stuff on fire. Mostly just Zuko lights a bunch of stuff on fire, actually—Katara stands watch and makes sure that they don’t accidentally kill anyone in the process, because even though she knows that none of this matters in the grand scheme of things she’d still really prefer to not be an accessory murderer. None of this may be real for anyone else, but it’s still real for the two of them.

They steal a boat. A _big_ boat. Zuko says something about it belonging to his ex-girlfriend’s family, that they probably won’t mind if they ever find out, but Katara doesn’t really care. It’s crazy, completely insane, because she’s never been more trapped than she is right now—literally trapped in the same day, over and over again—but she’s also pretty certain that she’s never felt more free.

All her life the only thing that she’s thought about is consequences. What can go wrong. Who could get hurt. Sokka had run wild and she’d been responsible, mature, cleaning up all of the messes that he had left behind. She hadn’t done the things that she wanted to do for fear of the _what if_ , lingering five feet behind, ready to catch everyone else when they fell.

The _what if_ doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s pretty incredible.

“It’s kind of amazing,” she says, only a bit embarrassed by the childlike wonder of her voice, “being this free. I’ve never felt anything like it.” 

“You’ve never felt anything like being stuck in an endless time loop? Shocking.” At her glare Zuko laughs, putting his hands up by his head in a declaration of innocence. “Sorry, sorry. I know what you mean, though. It’s like,” he pauses, eyes flickering towards her as if determining whether or not she can be trusted with what he’s about to say, “on maybe the…tenth? Yeah, the tenth Saturday I punched my dad in the face.”

“You _did_?”

He nods. “Right in the middle of the reception. I thought Azula was going to kill me.” 

“God, I wish I’d seen that. No offense,” she says, but she doesn’t really mean it, “but your dad is the actual worst.”

“I _just_ told you I punched him in the face. Why would I be offended by that?”

“I don’t know. He’s still your dad.”

“Barely.” Zuko picks awkwardly at the fabric of his bathing suit, deftly avoiding her gaze, and she’s filled with the overwhelming need to hug him. Katara, perpetual mother to all. Apparently even a time loop won’t change that. “My uncle is more of a dad to me than Ozai ever has been. If I hadn’t had him…well. I don’t really know what kind of person I’d be, but I try not to think about it.” 

Katara doesn’t know much about time.

She doesn’t know if multiple universes exist. She’s not really sure if she buys into Sokka’s whole theory that there’s infinite versions of themselves out there somewhere, everything happening all at once, constants and variables, folding and unfolding. At this point anything could be true, really, because she also hadn’t thought that time vortexes were a thing until she was stuck dead in the middle of one, but thinking about it too much gives her a migraine.

She thinks she knows Zuko, though. She thinks that she’s at least _starting_ to know him, his mannerisms, the things that make him laugh and the things that make him complain like a grumpy old man with a grudge against the world. Katara’s not really certain how much her limited experience with him counts for, but she still feels compelled to say something—something honest, her fingertips ghosting on top of his hand in a gesture of comfort. Companionship. 

“I think you’d still be you,” she tells him, and when his eyes turn to meet hers she knows that the heat rushing to her cheeks can’t just be explained away by the sun. “A little bit rougher around the edges, maybe, but still you. That’s a good thing, by the way.”

His brow furrows. He looks somewhere between sad or moved; Katara can’t really tell. She’s not so certain that there’s a difference. 

“Yeah,” he says, gaze still locked with her own, not wavering for even a moment. “Yeah, maybe.” 

.

They fall asleep like that: tipsy, happy, the stars above them, the waves beating ceaselessly against the side of the boat.

They fall asleep happy, or something along those lines.

.

“Tomorrow’s my birthday. Have I told you that yet?” Zuko asks her one morning, frowning at his own admission. “I mean, it will be. If it ever happens.” 

“It’ll happen,” Katara replies, and she plans.

Which is exactly how she winds up at the Ember Island hotel bar the next-same Saturday, having paid the staff every penny in her bank account (secure in the knowledge that it would wind up back there in the morning)to help her set everything up, throwing her arms wide upon as Zuko wandered in at the agreed upon meeting time. There’s a giant piece of poster paper stretched across the wall—it reads, _Happy Hundredth Birthday You Flaming Asshole_ , the words outlined in glitter ink that she’d found at the hotel gift shop.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, and out of the goodness of her heart she pretends not to notice the way his cheeks are flushing the same colour crimson as the balloons in the corner. “It’s not even my birthday. And it _definitely_ hasn’t been that long.”

“Just say _thank you_ and do a shot with me.”

He doesn’t do that. Instead he hugs her, arms latched around so tight that Katara wonders if it’s not some kind of strange attempt to keep her rooted in one spot, as if he’s frightened that if he lets go she’s going to disappear entirely. She wishes she could promise him that she’s not going anywhere, that she’ll _always_ be there, but at this point? At this point she really doesn’t know anything at all.

“Thank you,” he mutters into her shoulder, the words muffled against her skin. “Seriously. Thank you, Katara.” 

It feels…

It feels a lot deeper than it should.

They do a shot of Fireball together, and she tries her hardest not to read too much into it.

She tries her hardest not to think about the fact that somehow, for some impossible to define reason, this seems to be her infinity.

She tries her hardest not to think about anything other than Zuko. 

.

Pretty much every day is like that, some sort of variation on the same fucked up theme.

Katara wakes up to Zuko outside her room, usually a freshly-baked croissant in his hands that he passes over to her. When she asks him why he’s _always_ wide awake long before he is he just shrugs and replies that he _rises with the sun_ , which is such a Zuko answer that she doesn’t really have time to question him about it. It makes sense, land in that very same way…well, she can’t believe it, but somehow all of this is starting to make sense.

“I think you might be my best friend,” Zuko tells her one afternoon, when they’re lying on the roof of his family home and watching the sunset, a bowl of (stolen) bruschetta between them. “Is that weird? That’s probably weird.” 

“We’re trapped in infinity,” she fires back, the words nowhere near as sharp as they should have been. “I’m pretty sure that I’m your only friend.”

“I’m really sorry for getting you stuck in here. I don’t know how it happened, but…” he trails off for a moment, bumping his shoulder into her own with all the affection of a grade-school soccer teammate, “if it was going to be anyone, I’m really glad that it’s you.”

“Me too,” Katara says, before she allows herself a moment to dwell on his words. “I’m glad it’s you, too.”

“You’re not…you’re not still mad that I dragged you into this?” 

“Oh, I’m mad,” she laughs, jabbing her elbow into his side. “ _Furious_. I just know that if I kill you today, the conversation we’ll have to have tomorrow will be really awkward.” 

On Katara’s twentieth Saturday in the vortex they stumble into the wedding reception almost obscenely late, dressed in matching pineapple-patterned button down shirts and giggling like school children. When people stare at them Katara almost doesn’t notice, and what she _does_ notice is that she doesn’t care, not really, not anywhere as much as she might have before…before everything.

The only people who definitively don’t notice are Sokka and Suki, making out in a dimly-lit corner by the open bar. Thank God for that, she thinks. If there’s anyone that Katara really doesn’t feel like dealing with right now, it’s her brother and his relentless teasing. 

Ty Lee grabs her forearm as Azula drags her brother away, acrylic nails digging into Katara’s sun-darkened flesh like daggers. Her friend looks worried; she just feels liberated.

“What are you _doing_ , Kat?” the bride snaps, although there’s less fire to her words than Katara suspects must be in Azula’s right now. God, poor Zuko. “You disappeared right after the ceremony ended and I thought you’d like, drowned on the beach or something. We were looking for you all afternoon!” She pauses, thinking. “Well, not all afternoon. And it was mostly just Iroh and your brother. But they were looking for at least an hour!” 

Katara laughs, delighted, bright, not at all appropriate for the current situation. “God, no. I’d never drown, accidentally or otherwise. A reliable source told me that it’s probably the worst way to die.” 

It’s at that exact moment that Zuko meets her eyes from across the tent, his sister’s finger jabbing in his face in almost flawless rhythm with her words, and he smiles. _Really_ smiles, his face wrinkling with the effort, his scar scrunching up at the edges. He looks at her with affection; he looks at her as though he has no desire to look at anything else and that’s terrifying, Katara thinks. That’s right out of one of her pre-vortex nightmares. 

Not because she doesn’t want it. That’s the thing: it’s terrifying because she never wants him to stop looking at her like that.

Ty Lee notices, of course. Of _course_ she does, because she’s a lot more clever than most people give her credit for and, well, Katara supposes that she’s not exactly being subtle about the whole ‘ _yearning from afar’_ thing. Sokka always told her she had a terrible poker face.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” her friend huffs, bringing her hand to her mouth to cover the grin that Katara knows is only moments away from taking over her entire face. “Azula is going to kill you. Both of you. And me too, probably.”

“She won’t kill you. She loves you,” Katara argues, although her heart really isn’t in the words.

“And you love Zuko.” 

“I hardly know Zuko.” _Lie_. Horrible, miserable lie.

“And you still want to ride off into the Ember Island sunset with him.” 

Which is…

Okay.

Which, while not entirely untrue, is a _lot_ to deal with right now.

.

She spends the next Saturday in her room.

And the next one.

And the next one. 

Zuko knocks on her door a few times. She slips a note underneath—it reads, _Feeling really down right now. See you soon._ and tries not to feel guilty about the fact that she’s really obviously avoiding him, that everything she’s doing right now is basically just to guarantee that she can avoid those stupid, golden eyes for another twenty-four hours.

She sends Sokka, Suko, and Ty Lee the same text message: _Think I have the stomach flu. So sorry. Going to spend the day in bed and try not to die. Enter my room at your own risk._ It’s not fair, not in the least, but she knows that it’s not going to matter in the long run. Katara won’t have to beg for Ty Lee’s forgiveness or Azula’s mercy, because when the happily wedded couple wakes up tomorrow they _won’t_ be wedded and none of this will have happened, and she can go on feeling like an idiot all over again.

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. It’s childish.

It’s just…she told herself this wasn’t going to happen.

Not the time vortex, obviously. There was no way that she could have predicted that part. It’s the whole _falling for a guy that you’ve just met_ thing that’s getting to her, another classic Katara move, another humiliating venture into her hopeless romanticism that seems to bite her in the ass every time she allows it the slightest bit of power.

Katara had gone to this wedding single, by herself and confident for the first time in what felt like forever. She’d gone there prepared to leave alone, convinced that she was going to have fun and dance and be by herself without slipping into her same patterns. 

On that Saturday, the first Saturday, she’d kissed Zuko and felt powerful. A one-time hookup was something the old Katara would never do; it was something that she could take pride in, a sign of growth, finally doing something for herself that didn’t require anyone’s approval or anyone’s agreement. It would have been a momentary blip in time that she could hold onto, a handful of hours when she’d defied everyone’s expectations including her own. 

Now she’s here. Now she’s here, and _he’s_ here, and the only thing that she wants to do is talk to him. Tell him she’s sorry. Kiss him. Every morning he slips a note under her door, a different message written across it each time—

_I hope you’re okay._

_Let me know when you want to talk._

_Did I do something? If I did, I’m really sorry._

_I’m worried about you._

_I fucking hate Saturdays._

_And weddings. I fucking hate weddings._

_I miss you._

It’s that last note that does it for her. It’s the simplicity of the message, three words, seven letters, an infinite number of implications. It’s the smudged ink on the paper, the intimate honesty of the confession, the simplicity of it all—Zuko misses her. 

He misses her.

And Katara doesn’t know much about time, doesn’t have any idea how she wound up where she is: stuck dead in the middle of it, so exhausted by its nonsensical nature that she’d given up on even attempting to understand it all together, but she knows what it means to feel as though time is running out. She knows the pressure-crunch of a decision, knows that time may be frozen for everyone else but that it’s continuing for her and Zuko but he’s not going to keep on waiting forever.

Maybe time doesn’t exist. Maybe it doesn’t exist for _them_ , but she’s pretty sure that she’d be the stupidest person in the world if she lets another second of this…whatever it is pass by without grabbing hold of what’s right in front of her. 

She writes a note and places it on the pillow beside her.

She’ll slide it under the door in the morning.

.

At eleven in the morning on the second Saturday of August (her twenty-fifth? Thirtieth second Saturday? It’s impossible to say), she opens the door of her hotel room in her powder-pink bridesmaids dress, hair tied back in an elaborate braid, peach coloured lipstick glistening in the sunlight. 

Zuko holds the piece of paper up in front of his face, high enough so that Katara can read the words she’d scrawled the night before—

_I’ll be out at eleven. Wear your suit._

_Let’s go to a fucking wedding._

“I have to say,” he begins, voice carefully neutral, cheeks beautifully flushed, “when you slipped that note under the door this morning this is kind of the last thing that I expected.”

“What did you expect, then? A restraining order?”

Zuko doesn’t bother looking sheepish. “Honestly? Yeah, kind of.” 

She smiles at him. He smiles back, a little hesitant, a little unsure, as though he’s still afraid that she’s going to tear his head off at any given moment. It’s his look of uncertainty that prompts Katara to step forward, threading her arm through his own, giving his hand a small squeeze. She tries desperately not to notice how perfectly it fits in her own, but, well. They’re a little beyond that at this point.

“Zuko,” she says, slowly, gently, as if speaking to a startled deer. “You’re going to come with me to this wedding, we’ll watch your sister get married to my best friend, and then we’re going to make this stupid day one that’s actually worth remembering.” 

She squeezes his hand again.

This time, he squeezes back.

.

It’s not until _way_ later that evening that they have a moment together, once everyone else is drunk enough to ignore one of the bridesmaids slipping off with the best man. Even Suki is too distracted making out with Katara’s brother to notice, with is somehow both disturbing and a blessing from the Gods. It’s perfect, honestly. For the first time in a really long time everything feels right.

Everything except for the fact that Zuko is still staying approximately six feet away from her, following her down the beach like she’s leading him to his watery grave. That, decidedly, is not.

“I spent yesterday thinking,” she begins.

“A dangerous habit,” Zuko interrupts, cowed only slightly by her glare.

“I spent it _thinking_ ,” she continues, “that this whole time vortex is probably the strangest, scariest, worst thing that’s ever happened to me. And yes, that includes the time that Azula threatened to burn me at the stake if I didn’t help her come up with the perfect proposal for Ty Lee.”

“Are you done? Because I’d honestly rather be,” he pauses, as if taking a moment to consider his options, “literally anywhere rather than listening to you tell me how badly I ruined your life. I know, okay?”

“Can you shut up and let me finish?”

“Then stop rambling and just _finish_!”

“I love you!” Katara snaps, and even though this is hardly the romantic moment that she’d planned she can’t help but delight a little bit in the shock that comes over Zuko’s face, in the way he nearly trips over his own two feet even though he’s still standing perfectly still. “I’m sorry I shut you out. I’m sorry I was so unfair. It’s just…imagine my surprise when suddenly I can’t stop thinking about how badly I want to kiss the asshole who got me stuck in this nightmare.”

“It’s not a nightmare,” Zuko croaks out, voice rougher than usual, hands fluttering by his sides as though he doesn’t know where to place them. “I mean, it was until you were here, and then it wasn’t anymore. I’m still sorry, but.” He straightens up a little bit, brings his eyes up to meet hers. “I’m not really. You know?” 

“I know,” Katara agrees, mirroring his hesitant step forward with her own. “It’s pretty incredible, isn’t it?” 

“The fact that we’re defying all known laws of the universe? Yeah, I think that’s an understatement.” He flinches only a little bit when she smacks his shoulder, hand reaching up to catch her own in midair. It’s a bit sweaty. Katara really doesn’t mind.

“No, you asshole.”

“ _Flaming_ asshole,” Zuko corrects her, and…God.

God, she _loves_ him.

“I just think that it’s pretty incredible,” she starts once more, threading her fingers through his own, delighting in the feel of his palm against hers, their pulses racing in time, “how so many things can change in a day.”

She smiles.

He smiles back.

“Technically,” Zuko starts, “it’s been a lot more than a day. It’s been about—”

When Katara kisses him, sloppy and passionate and pouring every bit of herself into the press of her lips against his own, it’s at least only fifty percent because she wants him to shut up.

(Okay, maybe more like twenty.)

When Zuko kisses her, he kisses her like he never wants to let go.

.

Katara wakes up at nine-thirty the next morning.

Her phone isn’t ringing.

The pillow smells like firewood.

She doesn’t know much about time, but she’s starting to think time knows a lot about her.

.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos are my lifeblood angels


End file.
